Hester should have gotten some flowers for her performance.
“Is the dead girl any relation to you, Sheriff?”
Lamar stopped, and stood for a second, with his back to the cameras. We had a good view of his face, and it was absolutely stony. He turned.
“Edith Younger was my niece,” he said. “That's why I'm not personally involved in this investigation.”
He turned, and ignored the hubbub behind him. Then, he did something I'd never seen him do before. As they headed into the Mansion, he held the door for Hester.
About fifteen minutes later, we had all the arrangements made to secure the house pending the return of the owner, and the search warrant team was going to head in for the night. The area searchers were still out there, but it was beginning to look like our quarry had given us the slip.
“We'll keep at it all night,” said Lamar. “And do a daylight search, too. He's gotta be somewhere.”
“Hey, Lamar,” said Hester. “You puttin' everybody on double time and a half?”
“No,” he said gruffly. “They're all just workin' a shift.”
“Not since midnight,” said Hester. “Happy Columbus Day!”
Lamar looked at her. “Well, shit.”
Columbus Day be damned, Lamar decided to leave three officers in the woods, with orders to search until 9 A.M. They'd be relieved, and the next trio would search until four o'clock.
“I'm not sure he's gone far,” said Lamar. “Somethin's not right.”
It was hard to fault that reasoning. Besides, we'd had a little bit of luck come our way. When you do an application for a search warrant, you have to describe the property to be searched with exceptional accuracy. According to the Platt maps, the area surrounding the Mansion was owned by the State of Iowa, as part of the adjacent wildlife refuge along the Mississippi. The demarcation between the Hunley property and the state land was the woods, naturally enough. That meant that we were searching on state land. There was no permission required from the Hunley people in order for us to tramp through the woods all day and night.
Before we left, Hester and I decided that we'd better get an interview in with Hunley and Ostransky fairly early tomorrow, and see just what they could tell us about Peel, vampires, and the kinky stuff on the third floor.
We pulled right past the reporters, who were caught, as usual, completely flat-footed. We were headed down the drive before any of them had a good chance to get a photo.
Just as we reached the end of the lane, and were stopping before entering the main road, I saw some blue out of the corner of my eye. I slammed on the brakes, just about causing the lab van to rear-end me. I opened my door, took off my seat belt, and started into the overgrown area on the right.
“You see him? Have you found him?” came from Chris.
“What? Oh, no, no, but you better come, too. We forgot something.” What I'd forgotten, and what had bothered me while we were still up on the third floor, was sitting just off the driveway. The garbage. In the big, blue container. Of course.
We made an executive decision, seeing as how all the contents of the big steel box were in several black garbage bags. Just take the bags, list them on an amendment to the inventory sheet before we left the property, take a copy back to the house, and just haul the bags down to the sheriff's department, and lock them in the evidence room, and go through them tomorrow. Anything we didn't seize, we could just haul back. And, since it was my bright idea, I got to cram all five bags into the backseat of my car.
The ride home was uneventful, but a little smelly.
I was less than popular at the office when I put five bags of garbage in the evidence room, and locked the door.
“That shit's gonna stink up the whole office,” said Deputy Kline, who'd been with the department long enough to know what he was talking about. “I'm gonna have to go out and drive around, for Christ's sake.”
“Imagine that.” I dropped my notes on my desk, and fumbled for the key.
“You find the guy you're lookin' for?” he asked. He'd been assigned as the general duty deputy for the night, and was the only one not up at the Mansion. He was actually in the office because it was centrally located, and it made more sense for the only one on duty to be there than anywhere else.
“Nope,” I said, inserting the key and opening my drawer. I shoved my notes in, took my undeveloped film from my pocket, and put that in there, too. “I'm beginning to think he got away,” I said. “Although it must have taken some talent.”
“For sure,” said Kline. “You got an army up there.”
“Yeah,” I said, very tired. “That we do.”
I walked out to Dispatch, and left a hurried note for Borman that we were going to start about 09:00, maybe as late as 10:00, and that he could meet me at the office when I got there.
When I handed the note to Winifred Bollman, the duty dispatcher, she looked up and said, “Jeez, Carl, you look wiped out.”
On that note, I called it a night.
EIGHTEEN
Monday, October 9, 2000 (Columbus Day)
08:39
I woke up about 08:02, to a ringing phone. I answered it, sleepily.
“Yeah?”
There was about a one second pause, then, “Hello, my name is General Norman Schwartzkopf, and I'm calling you on behalf of… ”
I hung up. Iowa was predicted to be a close contest in the upcoming presidential elections, and we were getting a lot of automated phone calls. I turned over, thinking I could get another thirty minutes of sleep. I lay there thinking about that extra sleep for thirteen minutes.
I rolled out at 08:15, and drank my first cup of coffee in relative peace. Always a good way to begin a day. I'd just missed Sue. Education did not wait for Columbus and his day. I called the office as I poured my second cup.
“Houseman? We thought you'd be up here by now.” Sally.
“Mmm? Who's 'we'?”
“Hester and me.” She giggled. “Really, we thought you older folks needed less rest.”
“Thanks, brat. So, anything happening?”
“I'd better let Hester take that one,” she said, and I found myself on hold. We'd installed hold music about a year earlier. The only good, reliable station we got was a country amp; western FM outfit that played music all day long. Unfortunately, they had an amateur portion during their broadcast day that began at 08:00 and lasted until 10:45.
“Carl?” Hester's voice interrupted some unfortunate young man's rendition of “Sixteen Tons.” It was sort of too bad, because I'd never really heard somebody so close to being a tenor sing it before.
“What's up?”
“You can forget our interview this morning.”
“What?”
“Yeah,” she said. “Ms. Hunley was called away on urgent business.”
“You're kidding?” Damn.
“Nope. Her 'awnt,' ” she said in a pretty good imitation of a downstairs maid, “with whom she resides, was suddenly taken ill.”
“I'll bet. And she of the iridescent hair went, too?”
“Oh, yeah. Tatiana had to go with. It's a two-or three-hour drive, you know.” She sounded a little aggravated. “At least, that's what Attorney Junkel said when I called. He said they left really early this morning.”
“Right.” Well, shit. “Gone to Lake Geneva, then?”
“You bet. Located on the other side of America's Dairy Land.”
